There’s another person taking over my body these days. And his name is Dad.

Today was pretty nice, so George was outside playing with the 3-year-old twins from next door, Cira and Christian. Cira and Christian are, for lack of a better way of saying it, monsters. Now, I don’t know if they are just normal 3-year-olds, but they are hard to take because there are two of them, or if they are in fact real life monsters. They are yellers and kickers and tantrum prone, and they never ever ever ever ever listen. Certainly my own 3-year-old has selective hearing when I am speaking (a trait he obviously inherited from his father), but these two are something else. Like, maybe they have legitimate hearing problems. But judging from the way their little heads tilt in the direction of the ice cream man when he is still several blocks away, I’m guessing the old hammer and anvil are in perfect condition inside their little ears.

Today, since it was so very nice, I headed out to the front porch with my lunch to watch George and his playmates skip around. Cira, stuck hanging out with her brother, the boy next door and her dad, decided to come on over. The first thing she did — she asked for some of my lunch. Twice. I politely told her no. Twice. Then, she pointed to my flowers. Now, I have no idea what these flowers are. They are purple and pretty and bloom all season and I really like them. Young Cira leaned over to smell them, only to quickly put her tiny little fingers on them and start squeezing.

“Don’t pull at my flowers, Honey,” I say.

Devilish grin.. Hand slowly moves back toward flower.

“Please don’t pull those, Cira,” I say, a little more motherly.

*pull*

“Hey kid,” I state. “Get your hands off my flowers.”

Holy crap, Dad just spoke through me.

Now, Dad wouldn’t really have used the word “kid.” He would have said “pal.” In fact, “kid” is really a term of endearment when my father uses it, as it usually is when I use it toward my own children. But the way I said it, it was not me. It was Dad. That kid was touching my stuff, and it was not going to happen.

It’s not just my father. I’ve been channeling both of my parents these days. I’ve slowly been turning into both Mom and Dad in the following ways:

Upon being questioned where an object is, like say, a backpack, I generally answer, “If I find it can I hit you with it?”

When my son asks me where his shoes or jacket is, I reply, “I don’t know, I don’t wear your clothes.”

I routinely take my kid to school without brushing my hair first.

I recently told Hank, after he was punished for something he SWEARS he did not do, “Well, that’s for something I didn’t see you do.”

I think stretch pants are the single most important and brilliant invention of this or any generation.

I wear said stretch pants while driving to school with my unbrushed hair.

I have, on more than one occasion, asked my children, “Are you out of your mind?”

I often tell my children, “I’m your mother, not your maid.”

If a child approaches me telling me about some toy he must have, my repsonse is, “Wow, you better get a job.”

I have screamed out, “God save me from little boys!” (my mother’s yelping replaced “little boys” with “teenaged girls,” and I think it’s fair to say that she really did have the short end of that stick).

These are just a few examples. But it happens every day. I think it is in this manner that we never truly die. We just become our parents. I cannot wait to hear some of those phrases come out of my sons’ mouths.

You forgot one of my all time favorites. When I can’t remember one of my children’s names, I tend to call them Stosh or Gertrude. When they give me that “Who are you talking to” look, I follow up with, “You know who I’m talking to, I’m looking right at you.”